You bet your amice we’re rigid!

In a recently published interview [translation courtesy of Rorate Caeli], Francis said:

I always try to understand what is behind those individuals who are too young to have lived the pre-Conciliar liturgy, and who want it nonetheless. I have at times found myself in front of people who are too rigid, an attitude of rigidity. And I ask myself: how come so much rigidity? You dig, you dig, this rigidity always hides something: insecurity, at times perhaps something else…

Rigid. Insecure. Defensive.

This from the same man who said, “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.”While there can be no doubt that Francis intends to criticize those who are devoted to the traditional Mass, the charge of “rigidity” is well and truly deserved.

This is why we are deeply devoted to the venerable ancient rite of Holy Mass strictly observed.

This is why we are firmly inflexible rather than lax or indulgent when it comes to the one true Faith that is conveyed in a precise and accurate way in its offering.

The reason Francis finds this perplexing is equally as simple: As one can hardly deny, the man has little if any sensus Catholicus.

This much is evident as he went on to say:

Pope Benedict accomplished a just and magnanimous gesture [translator’s note: the motu proprio ‘Summorum Pontificum’] to reach out to a certain mindset of some groups and persons who felt nostalgia and were distancing themselves. But it is an exception. That is why one speaks of an ‘extraordinary’ rite. The ordinary in the Church is not this. It is necessary to approach with magnanimity those attached to a certain form of prayer. But the ordinary is not this. Vatican II and Sacrosanctum Concilium must go on as they are. To speak of a ‘reform of the reform’ is an error.

Let’s be clear: Speaking of the traditional Mass as an “extraordinary rite,” as Benedict XVI most certainly did, has always been a laughable inversion of reality, and there can be no doubt that the current Pope Contemplatus did the Church a grave disservice in coining that unfortunate phrase.

That said, when it comes to his commentary on Summorum Pontificum, it would appear that Francis is either a victim of genuine ignorance (difficult to believe) or is simply posturing in order to further his own agenda (rather easy to believe based on his history; e.g., the Synod fiasco).

In any case, Summorum Pontificum has little to do with reaching out to some ill-defined group of persons who are paralyzed by nostalgia.

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.

Get that, Francis?

The traditional Latin Mass isn’t just a “certain form of prayer” preferred by certain intransigent people; it is sacred and great for every generation, and a firm devotion to said rite can scarcely be considered harmful.

While Francis is pleased to paint the traditional Mass as “an exception;” Benedict, by contrast, declared that the ancient rite “was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted.” (ibid.)

In fact, the central point of Summorum Pontificum is to make plain that “the priest needs no permission from the Apostolic See or from his own Ordinary” in order to offer the traditional Mass.

So much for it being “an exception.”

Francis went on to suggest that Saint Vincent of Lérins would agree with his criticism of those “rigid” persons who desire the ancient rite, saying:

Tradition blooms! There is a Traditionalism that is a rigid fundamentalism: it is not good. Faithfulness instead implies a growth. Tradition, in the transmission from one age to the next of the deposit of the faith, grows and consolidates with the passage of time, as Saint Vincent of Lérins said in his Commonitorium Primum.

Given that Francis already enjoys a well-earned reputation for twisting Sacred Scripture to say whatever he wishes it to say, one can hardly be surprised that he is playing fast and loose with St. Vincent’s reputation.

The following from St. Vincent of Lérins makes it rather clear where he truly stood:

Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all … we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed.

Make no mistake about it; St. Vincent of Lérins would have condemned Francis’ decidedly modernist attitude toward tradition.

You see, just like us, St. Vincent was as rigid as they come, and for the very same reason:

Archbishop Lefebvre:
“And all the other traditional cardinals have been eliminated. And progressive, modernist cardinals were put in their stead; they are for the changes, for the novelties in the Church. Thus now in Rome you have these cardinals: Cardinal Casaroli, Cardinal Baggio and Cardinal Polletti, the Cardinal Vicar, and you have as Secretary to the Congregatio to the Divine Worship Virgilio Noe, people who are entirely against Tradition; they do not want to see it at all, they are against, absolutely against. As soon as someone is attached to the Tradition, he must be eliminated, he must be pushed outside of the services of the Church.
Thus many traditional bishops gave their resignations. I know many bishops; I would take the example of Bishop MacQuett, Archbishop of Dublin who felt despised after the Council because he was attached to Tradition. He gave his resignation and six weeks later he died. I am sure he died out of sorrow, sorrow for what was happening in the Church, sorrow to feel that he, a man so dedicated to the Pope, dedicated to the Church for all his life, was despised in such a way by Rome itself. This had bewildered him and practically killed him. Also here (in California) I think of Cardinal McIntyre, who was also very attached to the Tradition. He also was put aside. Cardinal Siri, who is still the Cardinal of Genoa, was president of the episcopal conference in Italy before the arrival of Pope Paul VI. When Pope Paul VI arrived, he took him off the presidency of the Italian Episcopal Conference because he was attached to the Tradition. One could quote similar cases everywhere, in every country. Priests – and you certainly know some priests and you have some of them here among the older priests, you know some of them – were persecuted by their bishops because they were keeping the Tradition.
And if I, myself, am persecuted, and I have been and still am persecuted in my seminaries, in my Society, if I am persecuted it is because I am attached to Tradition, and they hate me because I keep Tradition in my seminaries. And all the lay faithful have a similar case: lay people attached to Tradition are thrown out of their parishes. You have there, my dear brethren, a very tragic situation in the Church.”

Archbishop Lefebvre:
“But there is at Rome a group of Cardinals bitterly opposed to Tradition. Cardinal Casaroli the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Religious and Cardinal Baggio, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops who has the very important responsibility of nominating bishops, are amongst them. Then there is the infamous Virgilio Noe who is the second-in- charge for the Congregation for Worship and who is perhaps worse even than Bugnini. And then there is Cardinal Hamer, the Belgian Archbishop who is second in charge of the Holy Office, who comes from the region of Louvain and is imbued with all the modern ideas of Louvain. They were bitterly opposed to Tradition. They did not want to hear us speak about it. I believe that they would have strangled me if they could.”

People ask me about Pope Francis and I tell them he and I are the same age but I am a Catholic. Additionally, I suggest that if I could get to Rome and anywhere near him, they would have to take both of us to the hospital to get my foot extracted from his backside.

This is exactly the kind of manly attitude we need to take back the Church from the heretics and fairies .
There is a tradition of Saint Nicholas attending the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. The story goes that he got into a debate with Arius about whether there was a time when the Word did not exist. Nicholas disagreed and the debate ended suddenly when Nicholas punched out Arius right there on the floor of the council. Sometimes a good slap saves a lot of trouble further down the road.
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Saint Nicholas, pray for us, and teach us how to fight heretics.

Yes. Here is a quote regarding modernists by St. Pius X which I never get tired of:
“Kindness is for fools! They want them to be treated with oil, soap, and caresses but they ought to be beaten with fists! In a duel you don’t count or measure the blows, you strike as you can! War is not made with charity, it is a struggle a duel. If Our Lord were not terrible he would not have given an example in this too. See how he treated the Philistines, the sowers of error, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the traitors in the temple. He scourged them with whips!”

Thank you, Louie, for this inspiration. I will beg God for more rigidity. I will pray for courage and Grace to be more like those inflexible martyrs who died for The True Faith and who NEVER placed even a pinch of insense before false Gods. By the way, did you ever notice how false gods were always identified as “false gods” in the past…they even have us fooled on understanding false worship. The only false gods I hear about today are not false gods but vices and sins such as greed, power, $, porn. These are now the new “false gods”. No more is any worship outside Jesus Christ’s One and Only Catholic Church considered worshipping false gods. Every body’s doing it. Except of course those rigid Catholics! Now is the time to pray for courage and perseverance! Rigid to the end!! P.S. I love how Pope Francis ALWAYS says what he means. I thank God for your translation, Louie, which is always proof of this and encouragement to stay on course.

Pope Francis can not understand why young people are attracted to Tradition .It’s the soul that is attracted to the beautiful Latin Mass ,the modernists act on the intellect and imagination , but God is acting on the soul ,which they have no access too ,because many of them have lost the Faith ,and do not believe .They have the keys to the Churches ,only God himself has the key to the soul.

Well, that’s just it. He isn’t trying to understand. He’s making judgements, as usual, while refusing to acknowledge what Catholics have said to him regarding why they care about the TLM. He tries to make it sound like he’s an understanding person, at first, but he isn’t. Far from it. It should be remembered that Modernism infects the intellect. He doesn’t seem capable of really understanding anyone who does not agree with his agenda. So sad.

“The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of those of low ability to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their ability accurately.”

Holy Tradition is the Holy deposit of Faith as given to us by those chosen by God to preserve and give it to all. Dear God, soon end the scourge of the evil Jorge Bergoglio. And the scourge of all apostasy and the indescribable evil it has unleashed. Lord, have mercy on us for not not doing all we could to fight Thy Enemies. Give us the courage we need to be prepared to make any sacrifice for Thee.

Our “rigidity” is that which binds us to Christ and His Church – the Holy Catholic Church, which is the specific, visible, hierarchical Church that Christ founded.
This rigidity, furthermore, binds us to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in its truest and fullest expression in the Roman Rite, the Tridentine. It is this Rite of Mass that is a truly organic development of what the Apostles handed down, as declared by the Church Herself, which makes the true nature of the Mass – the re-presentation of Calvary to the Father – explicit and central.
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In contrast to it, the Novus Ordo (“new – novel – order”), described by Cardinal Ratzinger as a “banal, on-the-spot production,” is a bastard rite, created by man, with the direct goal of subjugating those most important and beautiful Catholic truths so as to please those who reject them.
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Luckily, as declared by Traditionalists for decades and finally confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI, the old Rite was never abrogated, and that is because the new one was never lawfully promulgated as binding on anyone, ever.
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Yes, Francis, that’s right – we’re rigid. And you lose in the end.

I have a question. Does the pope only detest the TLM? I know some other Rites in the Church still use their ancient and beautiful liturgies, but he never disses them. Why? Also, I have always wondered if these other Rites have been as adversely affected by the Second Vatican Council as the Roman Rite?

I was raised a Protestant and didn’t even attend Catholic Mass (Novus Ordo) until I was 21. So I couldn’t possibly have been “nostalgic” for Traditional Latin Mass. But as I entered the Church, even then, decades before Summorum Pontificum, I longed for the TLM’s return because it is the Mass of Eternity, the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.